PORTLAND, Maine — Television meteorologist Jason Nappi said he was fired from his job at News Center Maine on Thursday over something he posted on his Facebook page.
In the entry dated July 12, Nappi said he would no longer tag businesses in his long-running series of posts about his favorite local pizza, lobster rolls and ice cream.
“It’s a conflict of interest for the company I work for,” the post read.
Then, on July 18, Nappi posted again.
“The station chose to terminate my employment following my most recent post in which I explained why I was no longer tagging local businesses,” he wrote.
In an email, News Center Maine President and General Manager Micah Malloy declined to comment on Nappi’s termination because it’s a personnel matter.
The station consists of both WCSH in Portland and WLBZ in Bangor. Its parent company, Tegna Inc., owns 64 local television news operations in 51 markets across the United States.
Nappi was hired at News Center in 2022 after nearly 20 years of forecasting for other stations in Maine, Georgia, South Carolina and West Virginia. Nappi said he first got interested in meteorology after moving to Maine as a child and experiencing the “Storm of the Century” here in 1993.
“That was the nor’easter of nor’easters,” he said on the air in 2022. “That really grabbed me when I was in middle school.”
But Nappi said in a phone interview on Monday that food has always been his first love, and his habit of constantly posting about, and tagging, local eateries came about for two reasons.
First, he said, he understands how difficult it is to run a restaurant. Nappi and two siblings opened The Bakery and Cafe on Main Street in Kennebunk in 2007. It failed two years later. During that time he was also working as a part time meteorologist at WMTW, another Portland television channel.
“I know how hard it is to keep a small business going,” Nappi said. “That’s one reason why I spend so much time and money going out to eat.”
He estimates he’s visited and posted about at least 100 Maine restaurants, ice cream stands and lobster shacks in the past year. Nappi frequently posts more than once a day about what and where he eats. His blue-checked, public figure Facebook page has about 31,000 followers.
“And my Facebook page reached something like 3 million viewers last year,” he said.
Nappi said he’s eaten out much more since his mother died in 2023.
Nappi moved back to Maine — and in with his parents — in 2022, to help care for his mother, who was battling cancer at the time. Now, with her gone, he finds it hard to make food at home without her, in the kitchen where she taught him to cook.
“I haven’t really cooked since she died a year ago,” he said.
Many fans have posted notes of support for Nappi since he announced his dismissal from News Center. Nappi said he’s been surprised by the emotional depth in the outpouring of personal messages he’s received.
“You are loved and supported by so many, including me, and I affirm the hope that this unexpected and unwelcome ‘plot twist’ will bring you to a new bright chapter of your life that you deserve,” wrote one supporter on Facebook.
“I will continue to support you and follow you. I just signed the petition to help get your job back,” wrote another, referring to an online effort to reinstate Nappi at News Center.
Nappi said he’s not sure what will happen next, but he hopes to find work as a Maine meteorologist while continuing to post about his favorite local food. For now, he’s started a new paid-subscription blog on Patreon he hopes will tide him over until he finds a place to land. It already boasts nearly 450 paying subscribers.
“I wouldn’t call this a crisis. Everything happens the way it’s supposed to,” Nappi said. “You’ve just got to keep spreading the love around, and it will eventually come back to you.”